Sweden will deploy its cutting-edge Gripen fighter jets to patrol Greenland as part of a newly launched NATO mission in the Arctic.
“As a NATO ally, Sweden has a responsibility to contribute to the security of the entire territory of the Alliance. The Arctic region is becoming increasingly important from a strategic perspective,” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said.
The government said that as one of the transatlantic alliance’s seven Arctic states, Sweden welcomed “an increased NATO presence in the region”.
Meanwhile, the Swedish Armed Forces said the fighter jets would be based in Iceland, where six aircraft have been deployed since early February as part of the rotating NATO Air Policing incident response force.
It said the contribution would primarily involve “various training activities together with the Danish Air Force”.
Swedish special forces would also be sent to Greenland for a couple of weeks to take part in training exercises, the military said.
NATO has said the Arctic Sentry mission, launched this week, will initially pull together undertakings already being carried out by its members in the region. But it is still unclear whether many additional military capabilities will be deployed to the region under the new mission.
Greenland
US allies in NATO said they believed the crisis over Greenland had passed after the launch of a mission in the Arctic — and looked to press on with bolstering Europe’s role in the alliance.
President Donald Trump’s threats against Denmark’s autonomous Arctic territory last month plunged the 76-year-old transatlantic alliance into its deepest crisis in years, before he abruptly backed off.
As part of a package to assuage Trump — who said the US needed to secure the region against threats from Russia and China — NATO announced Wednesday the launch of an Arctic Sentry mission to increase security in the region.
Dutch Defence Minister Ruben Brekelmans said he was “fully confident that this will also meet the concerns of the United States” at a meeting with counterparts from the 32-nation alliance in Brussels.
But while Europe breathed a sigh of relief at the apparent passing of that storm, the Greenland crisis has only reinforced, for many, the urgent need for Europe to take a greater role in NATO and its own defence in the face of the threat from Russia.
“What I see today is this mindset shift, where people understand that, yes, it is about spending more, but also it is about a duty of vision that we have to do this together with the United States,” said NATO boss Mark Rutte.
That is the message being sent by the Trump administration as well: that Europe needs to step up as Washington pivots to focus on other challenges, such as China.
U.S. Defense Under Secretary Elbridge Colby said allies were making strides towards a situation in which “Europe leads the conventional defence of NATO,” rather than relying on US military might.
And he said Washington would “continue to press, respectfully but firmly and insistently, for a rebalancing of roles and burdens within the Alliance”.
“If Europe rises to this moment,” he said, “the alliance will emerge stronger, more resilient, and better prepared for the challenges ahead,” Colby told allies at NATO’s Brussels headquarters.
To make good on plans for Europe to play a bigger role, NATO needs to make strides toward fulfilling the pledge made at its summit last year to have countries massively ramp up defence spending.
Military budgets have already increased since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and Trump has spurred on that trend.
“The good news is that the billions are coming in,” Rutte said.
He insisted, however, that he believed the United States would continue to play a central role in defending Europe.
“I predict that in the longer term, you will see, of course, the nuclear umbrella as the ultimate guarantor of our security here in Europe and Canada, but also a strong conventional presence of the US here in Europe,” he said.
As a concrete sign of Europe taking on more responsibility within NATO, the alliance this week announced that the United States was handing over two senior regional command positions to Britain and Italy.
The move was heralded by diplomats as a sign of increased “burden-sharing” within the alliance in action.
French Defence Minister Catherine Vautrin referred to a demand several months back from Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth that Europeans must be able to ensure their own security.
“Well, we are going to do it, we have started to do it,” she said.
The next crucial staging post will be the NATO summit in Ankara in July, when allies will have to convince Trump that they are already doing enough.
“We’ll receive our first full report on allied defence spending,” the NATO US ambassador Matthew Whitaker said this week.
“We still have some allies that need to step up, particularly those geographically further from NATO’s eastern flank. They’re not moving as fast as they should, and we really expect them to do more.”
By AFP News Agency
